The Playroom / Office Combo

As I mentioned in my first post of the year, one of my New Year’s Resolutions is to get my house in order. Well, one of the ways I have been working on that is by creating an organized and yet adorable kid-friendly playroom and office combination. While we do not have a basement in our house, we do have one spare bedroom, which is large and sunny and the perfect space for a playroom/office. After scouring the internet, catalogs, and design magazines for inspiration, I finally created a room that looks like this:

The room was a light green color to start with because it used to be my daughters’ nursery (when they shared a room) and we had several of the black office furniture pieces from our separate office (again, when the girls shared a room). I knew we needed some white pieces of furniture so the room wouldn’t feel heavy and too much like just an office.  And since the furniture was basically all black and white, we decided on a black and white overall theme with lighter colors, like green and pink, to make the room more child-friendly and playful.

I had originally desperately wanted the famous Stockholm Rand rug from IKEA, but after many, many failed attempts at purchasing it (sold out every time!), we decided on a black and white chevron one from Rugs USA instead.  And I love it.  It fits the black and white theme with a little bit of whimsy.

I knew I wanted to do a gallery wall, but I couldn’t decide if it should have office art or kid art.  Since there wasn’t one wall big enough for both of it, I decided on the gallery wall with my kind of art over my desk (aka family photos, my girls’ silhouettes, and officey art) and then IKEA Ribba ledges with a bunch of interchangeable cute, fun art prints from etsy over the girls’ play kitchen.  These two separate gallery-style walls help to also separate the spaces more: office on one side, play area on the other.

It took me a couple of months to put the whole room together, but it has been such a blessing!  The toys are no longer all over the house and the girls and I have a space we can go to to play and work at the same time. It is perfect. They are happy to come in here and play for hours, or I can come in here when everyone else is somewhere else and be on the computer or at my desk and have my own separate space that doesn’t just feel like a corner crammed into “their” playroom. I think it’s a perfect combination of playroom and office that makes all of us feel like we have our own happy little place.

Now if only my husband could find a room for his man cave…